Give It Away
by dragynflygrl
Summary: Dean's tragically different, and Sam can't save him, not this time. Not a Death Fic. HurSickDean, HurtSickSam. Bibro whumpage and necklace fic.
1. Chapter 1

Rated for language and violence, some non-graphic sexual references in later chances, maybe. This is a work in progress, but it's all plotted.

This is AU, meaning, it's set in a canon where AHBL never happened. There's no deal and no war. I did it that way because I really miss season one, and also because I don't want to get too tangled in the demon mythology just in case I want to rewrite this some day as original fiction. Sam still knows what YED showed him in AHBL, but he learned it some other way, and YED is still dead. There are no psychics.

If you be not BiBro, you won't like this story, because I'm telling you right now, I hurt 'em both whenever I get the inkling. Anyone with anything bad to say about either of my boys can stop reading now, kthx.

You and I both know I don't own 'em, and I have yet to receive a paycheck in the mail. So, that's the last I'm gonna mention money and ownership, because it really depresses me that I do this for free.

**Give It Away**

by dragynfly grl

Chapter One

Sam's read Lord of the Flies. What kid survives the American public education system without being forced to question his own humanity? Still, Sam's a Winchester, grew up knowing what becomes of people, or at least their spirits, when they make their own rules. The demise of one little fat boy had never really struck him the way he was certain it was suppposed to.

What had stuck with him, in all that graphic loss of innocence was the dude in the parachute hanging from the trees, and not because of the symbolism and allegorical signifcance of the imagery. Sam was a kid, raised on open wounds and B-movies in motel rooms that actually oozed in places.

So, the slaughtering of poor Piggy made him sad, a little, maybe inspired a little sense of save the world, and one love, and blah, blah, blah. But the dude hanging from the tree and rotting? Well, that was just gross enough to be really cool.

It's not so cool when the corpse in the tree is his brother.

**Earlier**

Sam realizes too late that the little things about Dean -- the things that sometimes drive Sam nuts and make him want to lock his brother in a padded room somewhere for his own protection -- well, they're not Dean's fault.

Not that Sam has ever thought they were, not entirely.

"Dean! Where the hell are you? I said not to do anything 'til I got back from the library." Sam slams the bathroom door, heart still pounding, because Dean's supposed to be here, and if he ain't in the bathroom, he's either freakin' invisible or on the other end of the phone Sam clutches to his ear, exactly where he's _not _supposed to be.

So, yeah, Sam's pissed.

"Where do you think I am?" The voice on the end of the line is definitely Dean, which does absolutely nothing to calm Sam's racing heart. "Just because you can't drag your ass away from your books in time to make our dinner date with Big Bertha doesn't mean I'm going to just hang around and let someone else get hurt. Don't worry about it, though. I'll handle it. I took another look at the map, and I think I figured out where she's hiding."

"You _think_? Dean, you can't run in there half-cocked. You don't know what you're getting into. How'd you even get there? I've got the car." Sam's hand twists in his hair with frustration, his gut churning as he drops down to sit on the edge of the bed.

"Community service. The guy in the next room looked way too drunk to drive when he pulled up, so I designated myself the driver of his shitty Fiat. He won't even miss it. And gimme a little credit, why don't ya. It's not the first Sasquatch we've hunted. What's the matter? No faith in your big bro?"

"I have all the faith in the world, Dean. There's no absolutely no doubt in my mind you're going to get yourself killed one of these days. How's that for faith?"

Yeah, the stuff about Dean that Sam's always written off as too much responsibility draped over too-small shoulders and too much power given by way of there being no one else there to handle the important stuff are not that at all. They're not _all_ that.

Sam pinches the bridge of his nose and takes a deep breath to keep from letting Dean have it with both ends of his very sharp, pointed tongue. "Look, just stop what you're doing and come back here. You need me to back you up on this."

"Sam, I can't just drop what I'm doing. I'm kinda hot on the trail at the moment, " a nervous laugh, "and I'm pretty sure she knows I'm here."

Sam drops his hand to his thigh with a thud, slack-jawed. "Wait? What? She _knows_ you're there? How? Dean, that's stupid. Get out of there."

"How? Gee, I dunno, Sammy. I think it might have something to do with the high-pitched, girly squealing coming out of my phone." There's a pause and a grunt. "Well, that and the fact that I might've accidentally forgotten to set it to vibrate. The bitch's got ears like a wolf."

Panicked, Sam stands up and grabs his jacket. "Dean, do not approach her. If you leave her alone, she'll leave you alone. Those other people were provoking her."

"C'mon, dude. She dropped a tree on their tent while they were asleep inside it. How was that provoking her? She couldn't take the snoring?"

"Everyone at the campground saw them shooting target practice with their bows and arrows, and from what I heard, they weren't being too careful about where their arrows went. She could've perceived that as a threat." He's already got the keys in his hand, long index finger through the ring as he flings the room door open and heads for the parking lot.

"So, what? Ignorance and stupidity are cause to dismiss murder? I mean, if that's the case, I might like to take a tour of Washington, D.C. spread a little enlightenment."

"No..." Sam grits his teeth as he slides into the car, grunts with frustration in echo of the squeaking door as he slams it shut. "Dean, would you just shut up and listen to me for once? Just once!" Pinning the phone to his shoulder with his ear, he turns the key and throws the car into reverse, tires squealing as he gasses the engine. "Look," he sighs, "you do not want to get on this thing's bad side. I found something in the archives, some obscure local myth. I don't think this is a Sasquatch."

"Dude, tall, smelly, and covered in hair. Check, check, and check. Last I knew, that was a Sasquatch."

"_Or_ a Wild Woman," Sam explains, spinning the wheel hard enough to fishtail out of the parking lot.

"Wild Woman?" There's a definite air of amusement in his voice. "So, she's like into kinky sex or something?"

Sam's about to say something along the lines of 'not kinky enough to do you' when Dean grunts into the phone.

Dean getting the final word; Dean raising his voice louder when Sam raises his; Dean never caving when Sam wants him to the most-- that's not Dean being a bossy older brother. It's not Dean being an ass or disrespecting Sam, not Dean refusing to see that Sam's grown up now and doesn't need a babysitter. It's not Dean full of himself or even confident, truth be told.

It's Dean sick. And yeah, by the time Sam realizes that, it's almost too late.

"Shit!"

"Dean? Dean, what's going on?" All he gets in reply is a crackling roar that sounds like something out of The Blair Witch Project and a clunk, followed by the tell-tale silence of disconnection.

One hand on the wheel and one eye on the road, Sam hits the End button with his thumb, then Call and Dean's speed dial code before pressing it back to his ear and waiting with his lip rolled between his teeth for Dean to pick up. Nothing.

"Damn it!" He drops the phone into the empty passenger seat and bangs his hand against the steering wheel before gripping it with white-knuckled ferocity and gunning the engine. One of these days, he's going to lock Dean in a padded cell for both their protection.

Gravel dust paints the giant oaks and sucker brush as the Impala roars down the camping lane toward the site of their last too close for comfort incident with the Wild Woman, also affectionately known as Bertha. About half a mile up from where they picked up the trail yesterday, he spots the camo-painted Fiat abandoned on the side of the road and does a 180 spin stop on the shoulder behind it. Dean can bitch all he wants about uneven tire wear and the inch of white dust on his baby _after_ Sam kicks his ass. What the hell was he thinking anyway?

Slamming the door, Sam runs around the front of the Impala toward the Fiat, but as soon as his ears get used to the absence of the engine rumbling in his head, the forest behind him takes up its own raucous and draws his attention. A crack like ball lightning from a transformer splits through the wall of foliage, and Sam looks up in time to see the top of a giant spruce disappear into the canopy below it, swallowed into some unseen maw of darkness.

In his vast experience, only two things he knows can make that much noise: a high school marching band warming up and something trying to kill Dean Winchester.

Dean has a way of causing a disturbance everywhere he goes. The hidden lairs of hairy supernatural creatures are no match for Hurricane Dean, the human flare gun. Who needs maps when you've got a masochistic older brother?

Diving through the brush, Sam reaches into the waistband of his jeans for his Glock. He ducks the dangling branches heavy with moss and thick spring foliage, keeping the gun close to his chest as he pops the clip.

With the ammo in one hand and the rest of the gun in the other, he ploughs forward until he can see the trees swaying in front of him. Their leaves quake a tambourine rhythm against the percussive backdrop of snapping trunks. Ground zero.

Sam dives behind an oak broad enough to hide a Volkswagen and inspects his weapon. Standard rounds for him are consecrated iron. They'll pack a hell of a wallop on just about anything, and are cheaper than silver. They can afford to fire off a few rounds and not recover them, and plenty of creepy crawlies are sensitive to iron, making it a good shot in the dark if nothing else.

He's not sure what it takes to kill a Wild Woman--he was still waiting on a return phone call from Bobby when Dean pulled his disappearing act--but judging from the amount of commotion in the woods ahead, making friends with her is probably not an option. His best guess would be consecrated iron even if he didn't already happen to be packing it.

Best he can figure, a Wild Woman's something like a fairy crossed with a Sasquatch, big and hairy but supposedly good-looking underneath, and no slouch in the magics department. Last he checked, consecrated iron could take out both ends of the evolutionary ladder Bertha used to climb out of the primordial ooze, assuming she didn't just fall from the sky, and barring some hellacious hybrid vigor, she can be killed.

Not that there's time to grab another weapon if she turns out to be made of flubber or Kevlar.

Sam slides the clip back into the gun, gets a good whiff of gun oil warmed by the friction, the Winchester's performance enhancing drug of choice. As soon as it slides across his sinuses like tears blinked back in embarrassment, his hands steady and the pupils of his eyes dilate. His eyes are shadows, part of the darkness and what's between. His ears, just a second ago ringing and shell-shocked on the fringe of the battlefield, are suddenly too aware of what they can't hear.

He can't hear Dean.

Sam presses his back against the tree trunk, gun raised, and tries to quiet his pounding heart, his panting breaths, but even with the solid oak at his back to absorb the extra vibration, he can't hear anything that sounds like Dean.

There's little doubt in Sam's mind that someday Dean'll get himself killed doing what they do, but there's no way he'll do it quietly. No way in Hell or Backwoods, U.S.A. is Dean Winchester going down without a fight and, at the very least, a giant eff you.

Sam strains his ears, filtering out the adrenaline-forced rush of blood and too-loud rasp of hide and seek breath. Around him, trees snap, leaves crunch, and chaos is a four letter word--loud. Hell, the ground even shakes, and that has to make a noise that _something_ can hear. But there's nothing in the air that says 'Dean Winchester is here,' so there's nothing in the air, as far as Sam's concerned.

Dean's either never been here, or he was--past tense.

The latter's not an option Sam's willing to consider, yet some part of him doesn't care about free will. So says the hair on the back of his neck and the vacuum fighting him for every breath.

What he wouldn't give for anything other than this raucous silence, the profound abundance of everything NOT Dean. He'd welcome a scraggly cedar to come out with a "Bite me," or a rock to start humming Metallica. At this point, he'd take a poorly aimed gunshot bouncing off the tree above his head as cause to stand in church--glory, Hallelujah. Instead he gets a banshee scream and a sloppy, sucking gurgle.

Sam rolls around to one side of the tree and looks for a better vantage point, spies a smaller trunk with a good amount of sucker brush beneath it, and decides that will have to do. Three long, hunched strides later, he ducks into the brush and creeps forward, paying no mind to the rot of dead leaves and fresh kills made of crunchy things that burst across his skin where his shirt rucks up.

When he reaches the other side, there's no sign of Dean. Sam figures he can't be far, though, because what he _can_ see is one very pissed (and hairy) Wild Woman. Again, one of Dean's calling cards.

From behind, she takes after her Sasquatch cousins, except that her hair is golden, thick, and wavy. The pungent dead-skunk odor of matted, unwashed doghair doesn't hit him square in his olfactory center either. There's a smell, yes, but more a dead marigold smell, not sweet or perfumey but not pleasant. Close to the ground where the air's thick, the forest is a locker room just cleaned with generic scouring powder and dollar store spray.

The Wild Woman has her chin pointed to the sky, either smelling or listening, Sam can't say which, but when the vines and branches quit their quaking, he guesses listening, and takes their cue. There's nothing he can do about his heart pounding in his throat except swallow and keep the sweat in his hand chilled against the butt of the gun.

She cocks her head, a robin awaiting an earthworm, and leaps forward. She lands in a crouch with a splash and rocks back on her haunches. Squatting, she waits, and when she tires of waiting, her hands raise at her sides, fingers curling and uncurling, beckoning silently.

The earth answers.

From the center of the clearing water springs from the ground, tiny geysers that grow and dance, bobbing in and out like Whack-a-Mole decoys, then burst, spray from the blowhole of some underground whale. The Wild Woman bounces on her haunches, obviously pleased and swims her arms out in front of herself, parting unseen layers of fabric.

The forest answers.

Trees on the edges of the clearing lean outward, lifting their roots, and curling them back like fingers, leave a gaping hole in the center. The sodden earth slides through and swirls brown and milky into the bowl, but ivy and thorny dewberry vines slither down, around, and through, form a living mesh to hold back the mudslide.

Sam watches, so entranced by what transpires on the forest floor that he doesn't notice movement in the canopy until a shadow slides across the clearing. Jerking his eyes upward, Sam stifles the retch that roils up beneath his ribs.

**Present**

Dean dangles over head, wrapped completely in branches and vines like a spider's next meal. All Sam needs is one exposed steel toe cap glinting off Dean's boot through a gap in the vines to know it's his brother in there and not some Blair Witch stick doll. At that point, he's done crawling through the filth.

The question of 'Oh, brother, where art thou' answered, Sam doesn't dilly dally to find out if he'll get back more than a bloody rag with some mysterious hunks of meat wrapped in it. He fires a round through the Wild Woman's heart and bites back a snarl as she does a slow pivot in his direction, a look of betrayal in her eyes before she sees him and understands. After that, it's just a sliding collapse into the mud, an abandoned car sinking on dry-rotted tires into its grave.

Sam claws his way out of the undergrowth and launches himself forward as the trees release their human fruit. The vines draw back, unraveling around Dean with a twang like guitar strings drawn too tight until he's hanging by just a single strand,every inch of exposed skin striped with red welts and bruises.

Balancing precariously on the edge of the hole in the center of the clearing, Sam realizes as the last vine snaps that he can't reach Dean and watches his brother plummet into the open grave, Sam's stomach close behind.

Like the vines retreating back into their original places among the foliage, the ground shifts under Sam's feet, and he sprawls backward, falling hard enough to knock the breath from his lungs. One of his long legs dangles into the cavern from the knee down and is swallowed into wet and cold before he can scramble away from the edge. He grunts and yanks his foot free, clawing for purchase with his upper body against the slippery earth.

Once free, he kips up onto the balls of his feet and lunges back to standing, pinwheeling his arms to gain balance on the still moving ground. By the time he gains his footing enough to move, there's no sign of Dean except the end of one broken grape vine peeking out of the mud like a memorial marker at the scene of a car wreck.

"Dean! No!" Sam throws himself forward and wraps both hands around the vine as the hole seals itself around his fists. "Dean!"

He drops back on his heels and pulls, feels the tendons cord in his neck and stand out like the quaking muscles in his forearms. There's a chance, he knows, that the vine's wrapped around Dean's neck, a strangling umbilicus, but it's the only grip Sam can gain, and he's not ready to let go. His feet start to lose purchase. Scrambling, he falls on his ass more than once. His teeth snap together when he does, hurt just enough to back up his adrenaline rush with pain induced anger.

"AAAAAHhhh!" He yanks again, certain his shoulders will come out if something else doesn't give first. The first tell-tale stretch and pop of impending dislocation vibrates down his spine, but he ignores it and pulls harder.

Freezing mud plays 'Uncle' with the last dry spot in his sock and wins, makes a victory lap up his calf. Sam trembles from head to toe, adrenaline, fear, anger, and just plain cold warring for the last ounce of determined strength in his long muscles. His breath hisses between his teeth as his lips curl back.

A sucking hole forms around the vine as he strains and twists at it, white knuckles bleeding, and he gains an inch, two, the hole broadening as something shifts beneath the mud. Finally, a hand emerges, bent like a sprout at the wrist.

Sam drops the vine and starts to dig at the soft earth around Dean's hand. He doesn't notice that the dirt's full of rocks, broken bits of wood, and stringy roots as his fingernails snag in them. They're bloody, some naked to the cuticle by the time Sam finds the cuff of Dean's jacket, and raw by the time he finds an elbow, but still, Sam digs.

"Dean!" His voice is scratched, strained like every other fiber of his body, and he barely recognizes it. All he cares about is Dean, Dean's hand, and Dean's (oh, God) blue fingernails.

Sam regroups, abandons the digging like a dog tactic, one hand at a time, and cups his hands together in the shape of a makeshift spade. There are at least two shovels in the trunk, he knows, but no time to get them. He thrusts his arms into the muck to his elbows and throws out a basketball-sized clump to the side, then another, and another, sweat burning in his eyes.

He finds Dean's hair first, then an ear, a stubbled jaw. He pauses with Dean's head uncovered to the chin, reaches under and around, searching for a pulse.

He almost doesn't feel it, weak and tentative in fingertips already throbbing to their own rhythm, but it's there, faint. No breath, though. No gurgle, no choke, no whine, hiss, or whistle, just silence.

Uncovering a shoulder, Sam reaches down into the muck and curls his hands into claws beneath Dean's arms. He takes a long, shuddering breath, and holds it, (brain aneurysm be damned) contracts every muscle in his body, and pulls.

There's a sound like a million leeches being scraped from their hosts, and Dean slides out of the hole, all but his boots above ground. Sam's bracing for the final heave, when his back spasms white hot and refuses to pull. His stomach curls in on itself, bending him forward at the navel, his breath coming in gasps that only make it as far as the branch in his trachea before his lungs hit a brick wall and refuse to expand. He loses his balance and drops to his knees, one hand at the base of Dean's neck and the other fisting in his own shirt.

His vision slides out of focus, but he can feel wet between his fingers that's not water, mud, or even sweat. At this point he'd almost hope for urine, something either one of them could afford to lose, but between the sticky, and the warm, there's hard and foreign. It hurts like a bitch and smells like blood.

Behind him, the Wild Woman laughs.

He doesn't want to give her the satisfaction of looking, of having the same look in his eyes he'd seen in hers, but there's some morbid fascination with blood and gore that's instinctive, part of the human mold.

He looks down.

No matter how much violence Sam's seen-- more than he'd care to remember-- his own blood on his own hands is still a shock. The splintered end of a broken vine protrudes grotesquely out of his abdomen, inside skin pushed outside.

"Son of a bitch."

TBC

A/N: Please review. Yeah, I know, everyone says that, but seriously...can't hurt, and you never know, I might update quicker if I get my fix early. Hint, hint...

Final Author's Note. I am cranking away on this, already have a couple of chapters done. Speed of updates will depend on feedback for the most part, and my hectic work schedule. But I'm warning you now that I have a few scenes planned that might delay me posting, because they were written with spoilery knowledge. I won't spoil anyone, so if I finish those chapters before the pertinent episode airs, I will hold off posting. You've been warned. And hopefully this is the last long author note you'll see.


	2. Chapter 2

See Chapter One for all disclaimers. Forgot to mention, the title is gakked from Michael W. Smith.

**Give it Away**

By dragynfly grl

Chapter Two

A cold finger of ice runs through Sam's intestines, a jolt that's neither shock nor blood loss, just years of practice and hardened intuition comingling with a heaping dose of pissed off. It's solid, hard, and always close at hand, even when both hands are otherwise occupied.

Sam smiles his most innocent smile, head cocked, and raises one hand in the air, friendly in all but intent. The other stays braced around his wounded abdomen, fingers splayed wide at the waistband of his jeans.

Bertha very nearly steps back, eyeing him curiously.

Grinning, Sam wiggles his fingers. "Hi. I see you've met my brother." He nods his chin in Dean's direction, trying not to twist too much. Impaled as he is, just staying upright is a chore his knees threaten to quit, but he doesn't have time for falling down and writhing in agony. He barely allows time for waiting, but every plan depends on the execution, and for that, the timing must be perfect.

After taking a long beat, Bertha hits her mark, despite not knowing her lines, and looks down at Dean. She has her secret weapons, and Sam has his. She wins round one for the old-fashioned stab in the back move, but Sam's in it for the match. With a grimace, he draws his gun from the front of his jeans, and blam, blam, blam-blam, blam.

This time he doesn't take any chances. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice... Well, no one fools him twice, not anymore. Bertha topples like one of the trees she's infamous for dropping on people, this time face down in the muck.

There are no bubbles.

He sways on his feet, a wobble that starts in his gut and turns his lower body into a tingle of nervous energy traveling the wrong way on overused pathways. As he tips forward, the vine yanks itself free of his side. He swallows a screaming, arching back with a grimace. Fresh blood runs down his hip in a warm torrent while he checks the gun in his trembling hand. He's not taking anymore chances.

Cursing his wounded stagger for slowing him down, he stumbles over to her hairy corpse and puts the last round in the back of her head.

"No one screws with family," he snaps, shoving the gun down his pant. "Bitch."

Still focused on his brother, Sam's heart thuds against his rib cage hard enough to hurt as he drops to his knees.

"Dean..." Sam rolls him over, listening for any sound of breath. Dean's head lolls in the mud and doesn't jerk when his nose gets too close to the ground. He's not even trying to breathe.

Dean could be dead. He probably _should_ be dead. Lord knows, he looks it, lips blue and deep welts striping across his skin from ivy drawn tight as shoestrings caught in escalators. And Dean's always had freckles, but even at arm's length Sam sees bright red pinpricks of color like bloodspray over his brother's neck and cheeks. He knows they weren't there before, stark in contrast to the too pale skin and blue-purple bruising.

Dean's a regular piece of Americana, stars and stripes, and stripes, and stripes, his near-death (near because he can't be dead) painted over him like a Photoshop masque.

"Dean." Sam tries again, his hand cradling Dean's jaw, one long finger on each pulse point, desperate to reach through the white-noise of anxiety and find that one thread of hope.

There's always hope, especially for the helpless who have nothing else. Knee deep in freezing muck with his brother sprawled beside him, the only warmth in his whole body leaking out in a red popsicle juice trail against the waistband of his jeans, makes Sam feel pretty helpless.

He has no idea how long Dean was encased in those vines before he arrived and no inkling as to how long it took them to suffocate his brother, but there's a heartbeat. It's erratic and fluttering, but it's there. That's hope.

"Dean." Sam rolls Dean's head slowly between his open palms, a gentle nudge toward consciousness. Dean's eyes are half-open, and what Sam can see of them is red and glazed. A tremble goosesteps over Sam's grave, over his skin, where it jabs pointed bayonets into the gaping wound in his side and shoots out his fingertips.

"Dean!" More insistent this time, Sam moves his hands lower. He takes his brother by the shoulders and shakes him, just enough at first to create a space between Dean's shoulder blades and the tree litter beneath them. He's reluctant to use more force. There has to be injuries under the skin that Sam can't see. His mind conjures up the sound of bones crunching, grinding together at fracture junctions, and internal organs sloshing in their own blood. Still, Dean needs to breathe, or he won't need bones or liver, won't need spleen, pancreas, or kidneys either.

"DEAN!" Sam hears the sob in his throat before he feels the tear tracks down his cheeks, like he's the one asleep and Dean's waking him from a nightmare the way he has so many times in the past. His senses have all gone on fight or flight overload and shut down, waiting for someone to shove a penny in the fuse box.

"Wake up, damn you!" This time Sam shakes him hard enough that Dean's entire upper body lifts off the ground. When it does, his head falls back sharply, mouth gaping open.

It's either a cruel cosmic joke, or the biggest slap in the face burning bush Sam could ever hope to see.

Dean'll kill him. There's no doubt in Sam's mind, Dean will kick his ass far enough past Timbuktu to hit the outskirts of Timbuk3 where the future's sooo bright...

The laugh that rumbles out of Sam's throat as he tips Dean's chin up and pinches his nose shut is as much dare as hysterical bubble. It's 'go ahead, make my day' and 'please' in some sort of whack job package deal that only cable television companies are supposed to find logical.

That's kind of the point. Life and death aren't logical. Not fair either. But Sam's pulling for the good guys, or at least he hopes so.

The first puff of breath into Dean's mouth is more sob than sustenance. The second one's longer, deeper, more controlled. By the fifth, Sam remembers why Dean had always been…(is)… in charge of blowing up balloons. Between adrenaline afterburn and blood loss, Sam's light-headed, and there's as much cold sweat on his cheeks as tears, but he doesn't stop.

He loses count at eight, but it doesn't matter. He doesn't need to know how many licks it takes to get to the center of the Tootsie Pop. He just needs to know he'll get there.

He does.

Dean bucks beneath him like he's been hit by a defibrillator and sends Sam sprawling into the mud again. This time, Sam's too exhausted to drag himself up again, just lays there panting while Dean coughs and splutters beside him.

God, it's like music. No rhyme or rhythm, just life, and that deserves a backing band. This time, when Sam laughs, it's all hysterical.

oOo

They're back in their room before Sam realizes Dean's necklace is gone.

A trapdoor opens under his heart when his damp sponge, pink with blood and not nearly as soft as Sam would like it to be, dabs at the muck around Dean's throat and finds a fine, red line the size of the amulet's cord but no amulet. He doesn't know why, but his hand pauses in midair as though waiting for the charm to materialize. It's just a charm, one of an arsenal they keep, but it's not where it should be, and that matters.

Sam has no idea how much.

Dean groans weakly, eyes open only halfway and blinking with confusion. Sam blinks himself, shaking off the unease creeping up his spine as he goes back to cleaning the broken skin and wincing in sympathy.

"Hey there, Tarzan. Had enough swinging through the jungle for one day?" Wringing out the sponge, Sam leans forward awkwardly, his free arm wrapped around his wounded side. The wound's in a hard place to reach, high on his left side below his ribcage, and it would take more energy than Sam has to tend to it properly. He knows he hasn't paid it as much attention as he should, just doused it with peroxide and poked at it enough to convince himself it's only through skin and muscle. He's packed a wad of gauze over it and wrapped it with an Ace bandage that goes around his whole abdomen, but it's not pretty in the least.

For some reason, that _doesn't _matter.

Just passing a glance in Dean's direction, he can see at least five injuries he's sure are higher on the triage list.

"Jane?" Dean grumbles, barely coherent. "Cheetah? Who greased the f-ing grapevine?" It's a joke, but neither laughs, bodies in mutual agreement that it hurts too damned much, and minds too dulled with exhaustion to make it worth the effort.

"Just me," Sam says, as though he's some consolation prize, "And if you _had_ greased the vines, you'd probably be in a lot better shape than you are."

"Yeah..." Dean's done arguing for the day, probably a good three hours too late by Sam's calculations. Maybe he's learned his lesson this time. "Bitch."

Or maybe not.

Sam resists the urge to mop the sponge over Dean's brow. It's already been wiped clean, and as much as he'd like to keep Dean awake and talking just a little longer, for his own peace of mind, sleep's probably the best thing. A sharp twinge hot across his belly reminds Sam he could use some sleep himself.

"Jerk. Go back to sleep."

At least Dean doesn't argue that. Baby steps, young Winchester, can't change the world in a day. Sam sighs and finishes up cleaning and dressing as many of the wounds as he can before moving to his own bed. He lays on his right side, both to protect his wound and to keep an eye on his brother, but if Dean catches him doing it, he'll say he was just rolling over to check the time.

By Sam's assessment Dean's faired better than he could have. Sam didn't find any broken ribs, though he's sure a few are cracked if bruising is any indicator, and there's no gurgle in Dean's throat. It's probable he was already not breathing when he got buried in the mud, so no worries on the coughing up a lung front.

That's not to say there isn't more going on below the surface, but heart beating, lungs expanding, and at least semi-conscious are all a 'check' on the Winchester medical checklist. So, no hospital. Not for now.

The fastest route to the nearest one is mapped out on the night stand. Just in case.

Sam takes that bit of consolation to sleep with him.

oOo

"What're you looking at?"

"Hmm?" Sam groans. His arm's heavy across his eyes as he drifts back into consciousness. "Nothing."

"Wasn't talking to you."

"Then who the hell _were_ you talking to?" Exasperated, Sam lets his arm slide down his face and fall to the bed with a thump beside him. "There's no one else here."

He turns his neck stiffly, having shifted to lying on his back in his sleep, and finds Dean looking at him from his bed, blood red eyes squinted in confusion. Dean scopes his gaze around the room once, shrugs his shoulders with a nod and then a grimace. Shrugging bad, apparently. "Not you."

"Well, then you could've let me sleep, attention hound." It's a lame comeback. Sam knows it, and he's pretty sure Dean knows it. His banter is broken this morning, along with...(ugh)...just about every other part of his body by the feel of it. He could use a whole gallon of horse liniment, and...(ow)...probably a sterile wash and some sutures. Later, though.

"You hungry?" Sam drags himself into a sit at the edge of his bed and considers getting another basin of warm water to clean Dean's abrasions with. If it's possible, his brother looks ten times worse this morning than he did last night. Par for the course, Sam knows, but still, it's never an easy comeback from triple bogey.

"No...not really," Dean rasps, but even in his best Jabba the Hut voice, Sam gets that there's a leading statement in the inflection somewhere.

"What then, _really_?" Sam asks.

Dean coughs a little, but there's no rattle, just embarrassment. Not much embarrasses Dean, so it's obvious what he wants before he asks. Sam's just pissed enough to make him ask. Small retribution for having the shit scared out of him, he thinks.

"I kinda gotta pee,"

"Kinda as in, Sam's coming back any minute now, and I can hold it until then, or kinda as in, I want me some hairy Sasquatch ass, so I'm gonna hotwire a car and race out there instead of waiting for Sam to get back from the library to Back. Me. Up?"

Dean groans, put upon, but there's a hint of apology in it. Sam can live with that. "Sam..."

"Dean..."

"Fine!" Dean flops his hand down on the mattress and writhes around on the dirty sheets in a half-convulsion Sam's pretty sure is Dean trying to sit up. He doesn't make it, though, and Sam's small victory of remorse on Dean's face is lost when that face goes suddenly white and a whole other kind of convulsion squeezes Dean from the center up.

Up and out...in slow motion and Technicolor both.

"Oh, shit!" Sam just manages to slide the trash can into spitting distance of Dean's bed before the first splash coats the bottom, not a small feat considering the way his joints crackle like breakfast cereal.

When Dean's finished, just a few stringers of mucous glistening like spider webs off his lips, Sam looks. Yeah, he looks. A doctor would, and Sam's the nearest thing. Brothers can't leave their lab coats at the door.

Yellow and frothy. At least it's not brown and watery. Sam trembles against a clench in his chest as he fights off the mental image of Dean gasping for air as the hole closed around him. He hated to think of Dean drowning in that slop while Sam was busy with the Wild Woman. Cold, dark, and alone is not the way Dean's going to go. Not ever. Not if Sam can help it. They made out okay, this time. No gurgle in Dean's lungs, no mud in his stomach.

Sam can't attest for between his ears.

"Dude, I'm sorry," Sam apologizes, stiff-legging the trash can out the door.

"Nah," Dean concedes. "I deserved that." Sam watches his Adam's Apple bob around his pride. "But I still need to piss, and I'd rather not do it out here, if that's okay with you. I know you're more of a voyeur, but I don't perform on demand."

"Oh yeah, right." Sam helps Dean into the bathroom, each leaning more heavily on the other than either will admit if it ever comes up, which isn't likely. Sam goes as far as the bathroom door and watches with his lip chewed bloody as Dean drags himself the rest of the way on the door frame and towel bars.

It takes longer than Sam would like, and that's not just his own aching body talking. He grimaces as his stomach muscles cramp unexpectedly, but pretends he doesn't hear his body yelling louder. "Dean?" He knocks. "You need help in there."

It's rhetorical, he knows. It's going to be a while before Dean's voice carries through doors again, even cheap, hollow, motel bathroom doors. "I'm gonna open the door," Sam warns. He waits for a few more seconds, and when he doesn't hear any frantic scrambling, figures it must be safe.

What he finds when he opens the door isn't as bad as he expects. Dean's not lying on the floor, not crouched in front of the commode, not naked and involved in one of those male bathroom rituals that seem not to notice if the rest of the body is willing or able.

What he finds is Dean, braced on one trembling arm and shaking legs in front of the mirror, his other hand on his chest where his necklace used to be. Oh yeah. The necklace. Only that empty, pained expression in his brother's eyes could make Sam wish he'd walked in on, well, _anything_ else.

No, this isn't as bad as Sam expects. It's a whole lot worse. They have so little, to lose anything hurts. But still, they're alive. That's what counts, and it's just a necklace, right?

Right?

The question hangs in the air between them, Dean white with shock, and Sam…

"Nnngh." Sam doubles over, fingers knotting around the gauze at his side.

"Sam?"

Dean lurches toward him as Sam's hand comes away wet and sticky. His body tired of being shouted over, it speaks in a language neither brother can ignore. And, oh God, it hurts.

TBC

A/N: So, I'm a little sad about the turnout on the last chap, but here's another. I hope y'all like it better. And if you're worried that there hasn't been enough Dean whump, there's plenty more to come, but only if you ask real nice. And yeah, it be necklace fic. You've discovered my secret obssession.

Oh, and I forgot to mention I'm writing this for NaNoWriMo. Lots of my friends are doing it, so I thought I'd give it a try. One of the rules is we're really not supposed to spend any time editing, just write, write, write, so if you see mistakes, feel free to point them out.

Or, just drop me a line to say it sucks. I'll only cry a little.


	3. Chapter 3

The vote's in, and the winner is...more Dean!whump AND more Sam!whump. So here's a little something for everyone. It might mostly be plotless filler, but ask and ye shall receive. This is NaNo, baby and fifty thousand words is fifty thousand words, eh?

On with the show..

**Chapter Three**

Dean doesn't remember much after hotwiring the shitty Fiat. He thinks he's probably forgotten driving the thing as a defense mechanism. There are flashes, images flickering across his memory like a broken strobe light, trees overhead and Sam... freakin' Sammy... all pale and wheezing above him with tears on his cheeks and blood on his hands.

He wishes he could forget that, but no one's ever really asked him about his wishes, so he doubts they'll ever come true. Seems like there should be a defense mechanism especially for forgetting shitty stuff you do that hurts the ones you love.

Maybe next Christmas.

Puking in the motel wastebasket, fire clenching every muscle in his body, was a wake up call, but even that's just a bitter taste in the back of his throat.

If he'd made it to the bathroom and back to his bed again without looking in the mirror, he'd probably still be asleep, still blissful in ignorance of what's missing.

At any rate, he _did_ end up in the bathroom. and he did look in the mirror.

Assuming he died out there, then looking in the mirror was his first mistake in this incarnation, the original sin he'll never live down.

He doesn't recognize himself. That's not saying a lot. It's been ages since he's actually looked himself in the eye, anyway.

Now, he can't look away.

It's his eyes, he thinks. Something's been off with his eyes since he first woke up, covered in mud and feeling like a dirty sponge that's endured too many cast iron skillets and too many trips through the dishwasher.

On Sam, the difference made sense, the odd shifting of shadows and light. Sam was worried, scared. That was explanation enough for the glare off his forehead and the deep hollows around his eyes, the 'off' in his aura.

Not that Dean sees auras. At least, he never used to. But something's wrong with his eyes ever since he went and drove himself to battle in a shitty Fiat and lost.

It must be his eyes, because the trees were off the same way as Sam. The trees weren't worried, long shadows tangling above him, and the sun with its new dark halo around didn't give a damn if he breathed. But they looked different, too. No explanation for that. The ceiling in the motel room wasn't worried while Sam cleaned his wounds. The water stained plaster didn't care if he lived or died, but it was stark, glaring, and hollow all at once, almost seemed to move like water over the back of a leviathan.

It looked wrong. Everything still does.

And the thing in the mirror, looking back at him? He doesn't know it.

It's not the red in his eyes where white used to be. He's actually seen those eyes before. And the purple, blue-black, welts? Practically Dean Winchester signature wear. Those are familiar. It's not what's there that's different.

Something's missing, the last curving aperture that makes two dimensions three. Or maybe there's something extra. He can't tell.

He can't trust his eyes at all, so doesn't miss them as he sways on his feet and grips the sides of the sink with both hands.

It's when his eyes are closed that he feels the one cold, empty space on his body, the one spot not burning, raw, and tingling. He can't spare a hand to check, not with the sound of grease frying in his ears and cold sweat dotting his brow, but he knows his necklace is gone.

Dean doesn't have a lot. Never has. What he keeps for himself, he keeps _on_ himself or molded around him, like the Impala's leather seats. He's never known if the amulet is anything more than a quarter toy from a storefront machine that rolled out in a plastic bubble. That's not what matters.

It doesn't matter where it came from. Just matters that it's gone when he finally tears one hand away from the basin and feels the air against his chest where it used to be.

When he opens his eyes again and looks over the shoulder of the thing in the mirror, he meets Sam's gaze and knows it matters to him, too.

And then they're falling and clinging, holding each other up long enough to set each other down.

oOo

"Well, that can't be good."

Sam wants to say it's nothing. He can lie, and he has, but it's rather a moot point with Dean dangling by one hand from the cheap motel towel bar, his free arm wrapped around Sam's waist to keep them both from collapsing on the tile.

Operation Rescue-Dean-and-mother-hen-him-until-he-promises never-to-do-something-that-stupid-ever-again...ever, is failing miserably. Dean's supposed to zip up, stagger back to his own bed and let Sam do all the worrying. That's the plan.

Except Sam's body didn't get the memo.

When Dean's hand comes into contact with Sam's bandaged side and feels like a whole can of pepper spray dumped in the wound, Sam has to agree. That _can't_ be good.

Something bursts. Sam feels it pop right before a fresh, warm gush spreads between his flesh and the saturated bandage.

Whatever busted, it must have been the source of the intense pain, because the wet and damp has a soothing effect, and Sam can almost stand straight up while Dean steers him over to the closed lid of the toilet seat. He's mostly embarrassed when he looks into Dean's face and takes in the pale whitewash of his brother's complexion beneath beads of cold sweat and a kaleidoscope of dark color.

"Dean, I'm fine man. Go back to bed. It's just a scratch. I swear." It would sound more convincing, he supposes, if he could say it without getting winded and catching a hitch in his throat every time his stomach cramps.

Dean shakes his head, a drop of sweat falling off the tip of his nose, and sits back on the edge of the tub. He tries to make it look controlled and decisive, but Sam doesn't miss the panic in his expression when his slick palms slide across the fiberglass and he has to white-knuckle the tub rail to keep from falling backward. Barely gaining his balance, Dean leans a shoulder against the far wall and grimaces down at his hand.

"This is fine?" Dean asks, holding out his hand for Sam to inspect. Sam swallows hard. It's a little hard to puke in the toilet when he's sitting on it, but he wants to. Whatever's on Dean's hand, it's not sweat. Sam would accuse him of pulling a Ferris Bueller tongue lick if he couldn't feel the same slick between his own fingers.

He's oozing. Oozing is never good.

Hissing, he presses his hand under the hem of his shirt and rips the velcro on the Ace wrap loose. Dean raises his eyebrow disapprovingly, his head leaning against the side of the bath splash as the wrap comes away in gradually darker-stained increments.

"Yeah, it's just a scratch, my ass." Dean's voice is still too raw to pull off bitter sarcasm. It's just pathetic enough for Sam to take pity and not come back with a quip about scratching his ass. Instead, he shrugs sheepishly, and that's a mistake. Ow.

He swallows a grunt that breaks somewhere behind his nose as his entire abdomen clenches. Spots dance behind his eyes, and Dean's hand settles on Sam's shoulder. His breath comes in gasps around the trembling muscles.

"Hey, hey dude," Dean soothes, and Sam's just out of it enough to wonder why Dean's singing a Beatles tune. Dean's hand slides up to the back of Sam's neck, and Sam can't help falling into the touch as he sways from the waist up.

After a minute, the spell passes, and Sam grits his teeth to remove the rest of the gauze. When he pulls away the matted wad, the wound's weeping pink and yellow, the skin hot and red to the touch.

"Jesus, Sam, did you clean that or just wrap it up and see if it would go away on its own?"

"Well, I had kittens lick it before I wrapped it," Sam says with a half-hearted grin. He's careful not to laugh, having learned that lesson well. He looks up from the mess to find Dean staring blankly back at him like he doesn't know whether to speak or pass out. "Dean?" A beat. Lights are on, but no one's home. "Look, I got it. Why don't you go on back to bed," Sam offers.

Dean blinks slowly, swallows, then says, "So now you've got eyes in the back of your head you're not telling me about?"

Sam's not sure what he's supposed to say to that, settles on, "Huh?"

Dean grunts and leans back against the tub splash again, turns more toward Sam so the wall's taking almost all of his weight, and makes a twirling motion with his hand and index finger. "Turn around if you can manage without falling off and cracking your head open."

It's not easy. Sam's body likes sitting. Sitting is good. It likes sitting, _a lot_ and protests the movement with a fresh wave of cramps. Forcing the sheepish grin to stay fixed, Sam tightens his arm against his side and uses the edge of the sink to push himself around.

When Dean leans forward to check the wound from the back, Sam feels the tremble in the fingers that lift the hem of his shirt, and the short pants of Dean's breath against the back of his neck are too strained and hot for Sam's liking. Dean makes a small noise as he tries to get a look at the sore, huffs a little louder. "Scooch back a couple inches?" He asks.

Sam does and feels Dean's hand tighten on his waist just below the edge of the wound. He hisses and tries to arch away, a reflex he can't override with a grin and bear it attitude, but Dean braces against the movement.

"Just hold on one second. Looks like something's trying to fester its way out." Dean speaks in halting syllables stilted by pain and exhaustion, and Sam wants to drag his ass back to bed before he falls out on the tile, but Dean's right. Eyes in the backs of heads is one freakish malady the Winchesters have managed not to inherit. The one thing that might actually be useful. Figures.

Besides, someone's got to keep the room paid up and buy food until they're ready to leave, and Dean's in no condition to do it. Sam can't afford to let an untreated wound lay him up. Not right now. Not when Dean needs him.

Sam bites his lip. There are some medical supplies still laid out on the sink from the night before, and with a sigh, Sam pushes them over to the edge where Dean can reach them without moving too much.

"Think you can get it out?"

"Yeah," Dean says. His voice is confident while his hands are not. Sam feels his fingers shake, the movement small but a hundred times easier to feel on the friable skin.

Clearing his throat, Sam says, "It might come out on it's own. You know, like one of those splinters you get that you don't know you have until it pops out a few days later."

"A splinter in your skin, Sam, not a harpoon embedded in your stomach. No way it's coming out without some help. Where do you think all this pus is coming from? You could get blood poisoning if we wait."

"Fine," Sam agrees. "But just clean what I can't reach and go back to bed. My Spidey Sense says you're going to pass out any second now, and I can't drag your heavy ass." It's supposed to be snarky, Dean Winchester-ese for 'I'm only giving in because I can't kick your ass right now, but just you wait.' It falls flat, or Sam's just hypersensitive, because the noise Dean makes in his chest is something like the sound a horse makes when spurred in the flank.

"I can take care of you, Sam," Dean rasps. "I don't always get it right, but I do the best I can."

Where the hell did that come from?

"Dean, I didn't mean...ah!" Sam's attempt to clarify is cut short by a searing pain in his back followed by another wet gush.

"Yeah, just a scratch." Dean clears his throat. "Dumbass."

Sam grimaces as Dean drops a wood splinter as thick as a toothpick and as long as his index finger into the trash. "Huh."

"Exactly the sound you're gonna make when my foot meets your ass," Dean grumbles. "Congratulations, college boy. You've got yourself an infection."

"I feel fine, Dean."

Famous last words of a fool.

oOo

Dean doesn't have a chance to think about the necklace again until Sam's asleep, the tell-tale signs of fever and infection already pinking his cheeks as Dean watches, shaking in his own bed.

Dean doesn't sleep. He can't. Not with the light too bright and the dark closing in every time he closes his eyes. The blinds are drawn, the lights off, but the room's so bright he has to squint. There's no heat in it, like flares off ice-coated snow. It hurts, long clawing fingers in the back of his head reeling in his spine like fishing wire. He hisses and breathes through it. That's all he can do, needs to save his energy to take care of Sam, but he wants to moan and writhe, pace the floor, pull out his hair, anything except just lie there and take it.

But Sam's in the next bed, shivering.

Dean wraps his arms around his knees and curls into a ball, tries to bury his head in his pillow as the grey of shadows chooses white or black. He's reminded of a star flaring before it implodes and becomes a black hole, the way it's suddenly brighter and then gone. As much as it hurts to watch, Dean's afraid to close his eyes, afraid what will be gone when he opens them.

Anyway, he can't sleep. Not with the walls moving, and floor crawling. Not with Sam shivering and sick. Nothing bad's gonna happen to Sam. Not while Dean's around.

And that's exactly what he tells _her_ when she comes to the door speaking tongues.

oOo

The fever hits him in the night. At least, Sam figures that's when it happens, because he remembers a rather craptastic attempt to get his wound cleaned and rebandaged. There was a hand full of antibiotics and pain killers at one point, which he's fairly certain he refused because Dean needed them worse. Yet, he's pretty sure he took them anyway, because they're still in his throat when he blinks his eyes against the glare. It feels like hours later. Could be days. Hard to tell.

Everything's off like a photoshopped version of reality playing in a bizarre horror flick slide show, one whacked out frame at time. There's no continuity between eye blinks, no filling in of blanks with voice over or commentary.

He feels like shit. No way around it. The cramps that started in his stomach have migrated to every other major muscle group in his body. He can feel his skin jumping like a horse trying to shake off a fly.

At least he's not alone in his suffering.

Dean looks like shit, too. Just like the good old days when they both ended up missing school because of the same stomach bug or the same botched hunt and spent the day leaning on each other, wearing thin their raw nerves. Sad that those were the good old days.

It's hard to say how Dean's getting on. Twice Sam tries to get up and check on his brother, who's lying with his back to Sam in the other bed, a sweat stain on his t-shirt. But Sam can't get up. Feels like a lead x-ray vest over his entire body.

Nope. Just every blanket in the room.

The sweat stain on Dean's shirt is that much more worrisome once Sam realizes Dean has given Sam all the covers. The ass.

Leave it to a big brother to have to one up his little brother in everything, mother henning included. It's the silent banter of actions that speak louder. Sam has a comeback somewhere, but he 's too tired, too hot, and too achy to do anything but slide back into the dark tunnel of sleep, where time has no meaning.

Time is immortal, but even gods must sleep. Even Gods must dream.

_**A long time ago... in this galaxy, I hope**_

_"But Mother, our place is here, in Heaven. Surely we can do the most good from here."_

_Tlazolteotl gazes at her son lovingly, long, dark hair shimmering in the moonlight. Even the night cannot mask the green of her eyes as she smiles._

_"Centeotl, my son, this is not the end, only a new beginning," she promises, her hand cupped against his cheek._

_"But why start anew? If there's something you're unhappy with, then change it. This is our world, our creation, and we can make of it what we want." _

_"What I want is to be part of it. Can you not see what we have made here? It is paradise. Do you watch them? The humans? Do you see how they dream, how they build toy houses and fill them with those dreams?" She smiles wistfully, a look he has not seen her wear for many millenia. _

_"This world is __**my**__ toy house, filled with __**my**__ dreams, and yet I can only peek through the windows. I guide them, offer them direction, but they do not know my will, my heart. They only guess." She shivers and wraps her arms around herself, gold bracelets clanking like windchimes._

_"It's true," he says. "They're not always correct in their inerpretations. But how can joining them be the answer?"_

_"Not always correct?" She laughs sadly. "That's an understatement, don't you think? They kill each other in our name, wear the skins of their sacrifices like robes to dress like us, to please us. They think it's what we want. They aspire to be us, or they fear us. They do not love us nor believe we love them. How can we understand the atrocities they commit in our names and condemn them when we do not even know their hearts or they ours?"_

_"They're human. They're not capable of understanding."_

_"But they are! I know they are, just not in their heads. In their hearts they can know, and they do, but they do not listen."_

_Centeotl moves to stand behind his mother, gathers the long, shining hair up into this strong hands. As a child he'd delighted in combing the strands, in braiding long ropes of it together and wrapping them around himself like a scarf. He longs for that safety and connection now._

_"So, speak to them. Tell them what is true," he pleads._

_"And have them hear me with their ears, interpret my words with their clouded minds? How would that change them?"_

_"They can be taught."_

_"They're not pets," she laughs. "They're children. Our children. They are molded from the earth we raised from water we squeezed from stars. They breathe the incancantations we blew over the barren to give life. They eat the fruit we've grown for them and sleep under the blanket of our Heaven, but they do not have us in their hearts. Their blood is sterile."_

_His fingers find a snag in the hair, carefully work it loose, one strand at a time. "And you would what? Inoculate them? Put your blood in them and leave your true children here without you?"_

_She reaches back, finds his hand, and stills it with her thumb stroking across the knuckles. "You will always have me, Centeotl. I am immortal, like you, and my heart cannot die." She fumbles in the hem of her long robe, long elegant fingers in the silken folds, and produces a charm, just a brass trinket that she presses into his palm._

_She stands, and even as a grown man twice her size, he feels small beside her._

_"All that I do, all my power, is here," she says, her eyes fixed on the amulet in his hand. "Where it goes, so too goes all my work." She steps back away from him, aglow with more than just moonlight as she breaks apart. Cracks open in her smile and between the jewels that adorn her. She raises her arms to the sides, a reverance and peace in her stance. "All that I am, they too will be. For that is my dream. Always remember, my son--love isn't love until you give it away."_

_He shields his eyes against the glare as she bursts apart and falls to earth, a billion shooting stars. When he opens them again, she's gone, His fist is suddenly hot, and he opens it, watches as the charm meets his gaze, two columns of light where the etched eyes should be. Then, the lights dim, and the eyes close, and he's alone, a motherless child. _

_He sobs to see his mother's face, cold, and hard, and empty. In anger, he draws back his arm._

_"If you love them so much, then go! Be with them!" And with that, he flings the amulet out of Heaven behind her. _

TBC

A/N: So, don't worry about pronouncing the Aztec names. You probably won't see them more than once or twice more in the whole story. I picked the names so you could look them up if you want, but I pretty much made up my own mythology.

(cont.) I have a ton of ideas racing around in my head right now. I put them all on hold to write this one. I really thought this story would catch on better than it has. I have read enough stories to know that if they don't catch on in three chapters, they won't ever catch on. I apologize to everyone who's read this far thinking it would get better. I really am sorry. That was my best shot. I tried Dean whump. I tried Sam whump. I tried plot. Nothing worked. The story just isn't good. Thank you all for reading. It really means a lot that you tried.


	4. Chapter 4

My apologies to anyone who read the author notes at the end of the last chapter. You've all now met my bipolar muse. Your kind words talked her out of the corner long enough to write another scene. So, rather than let her lose momentum while I do my weekend chores, I'm just going to post what I write as I write it. My apologies.

**Chapter Four**

The next time Sam wakes, the fever's winning. He shakes all over, from the inside out, not a chill of frigid air across sweat-soaked skin, but a bucket of ice poured into his chest cavity and packed around his liver. It hurts, too much for any level of comprehension beyond one syllable in his frazzled mind.

Dean is one syllable, and gone is another. Scared is Sam when the first two are in the same sentence.

He squints his eyes open enough to peer across the room. Dean's bed is there. Dean is gone, and that's all Sam can really get before 'hurts' pushes everything else away.

Loud. Crash, thump, bump. Scream? Who screamed? Noise wakes him the next time, but waking is hard, and he can't quite do it. By the time he manages to get his eyes open, the noise has died down. Whatever happened is done.

Dean's on the edge of his bed, arms tight around his ribs. Blood. There's blood on Dean's head. Hurt. But Sam can't help.

"Back to sleep, Sam. Nothing bad is gonna happen to you."

Something bad is happening already. Hot. Cold. Dean. Hurt. But Sam's 'tired,' and sleep is 'good.'

Wet. Sam can't open his eyes. There's noise in his throat, a keening whine he wouldn't know is him except for the strangle hold it has on him. His throat hurts. His neck hurts. Someone's got him by the spinal cord like the ruff of a puppy's fur and is yanking for all they're worth.

His arms and legs are heavy like they've been pulled too tight for too long, and all he wants to do is tie led weights to his fingers and toes and let them drop into the abyss. Instead, he fights, because 'Dean' and 'hurt' play in his head, a mantra as unrelenting and repetitive as the seizure. It pounds in his veins like the headboard against the wall as his muscles slowly relax, the strangle in his throat melting away.

His eyes are still heavy like his limbs, but forces them open, hears Dean calling over the din of Emergency Broadcast system tones in his ears. Turning his head with aching strain, he finds Dean, sponge in hand, wiping at his forehead.

He's wet already, in his hair, his clothes, his bed, but it feels so good to press his head into the sponge, and feel it squish, everything a little cooler for just a second.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry," Dean whispers. "Gotta burn it out. Nothing's gonna happen to you. Gonna burn it out. Sorry."

Sam thinks maybe he fell asleep with the television playing in the background. Dean doesn't talk like that. Something's just off enough that it doesn't feel real. He wants to speak, but water trickles off the sopping sponge and into the corners of his mouth, making him choke a little and cough around the burning drops.

Twisting, he turns his head away. Dean withdraws the sponge and Sam follows his hand as Dean picks up the silver flask on the table and re-wets it.

"Gotta burn it out of ya, Sam," Dean apologizes. There's a hitch in his voice and a tremble in his hand that Sam sees just before Dean douses him again with holy water. Then, everything's dark again, and mercifully so.

oOo

Dean's not in bed the next time Sam opens his eyes. Tossing off the hundred pound weight of sodden bedclothes, Sam rolls slowly to a sit, his feet sticking to the floor. Dean's watching him from the table in the corner of the room.

Peculiar. The muscles in Sam's face give an involuntary jump, an internal shrug of gratitude. Back to thinking in words longer than one syllable. The fever's gone, and it's back to the task at hand.

He gapes down at himself, wet through his hair and his boxers, sopping in his socks. It's sticky and the room's rancid with the smell, but it's sweat and sick, not urine, thank God. He doesn't remember any trips to the bathroom, but he didn't piss himself he doesn't think. The thought's vulgar, but he's still sick and gross to the center of every nucleus of every cell. Urine is in baby's diapers and tiny cups in doctor's offices. In his shorts and in his bed, itching on his skin, it's piss, and he's just glad he doesn't have to deal with that.

Glancing at Dean, he knows there's plenty else to deal with.

The room's a mess, every blade and gun they own laid out on the table, bluing and gun oil heavy in the air. There's grit between Sam's toes, and it isn't dirt or hard work caked in damp cracks. It's salt, the longest, deepest pile of it Sam's ever seen--tasteful and entirely extravagant, not typical at all, and it encircles his entire bed. Turning his head slowly despite the creak of the muscles in his neck, Sam spies similar piles on the window sill, in front of the door outside and the door to the room's closet. There's an entry to the adjoining room on the far wall, another pile of salt in front of that.

And Dean's sitting at the table, cleaning the guns, sharpening blades. His lips move, but Sam can't hear what he's saying. Dean doesn't look up from the chair propped in the corner, back to the wall, uninterrupted view of every door and window.

Overkill much? Sam would laugh, but it doesn't feel like overkill looking in Dean's face, pale and worn, still raw, bruised, and, shit, haunted. It doesn't feel like overkill when Sam takes inventory of what's not there.

No takeout boxes, no empty styrofoam cups, no cold pizza, no beer bottles, no dirty clothes, because Dean's still wearing the same ones.

"Did you eat at all?" Sam asks. He hates the sound of his voice in the stagnant air when it hits Dean like a blast from a shotgun, shoves him back against the wall in shock. There's a second when Dean's eyes meet Sam's and Sam wants to say, "Who are you, and what have you done with my brother?"

It passes when Dean quirks an eyebrow up at him, a faint tinge of color in the motion that's almost painful in its contrast to the pale. "Sure, Sammy. Had a whole bucket of those little pillow mints."

Sam laughs, noticing gratefully that there's only a slight tinge from the wound behind its soggy, sagging bandage. How many days ago had it been that they'd checked into this room and both laughed at the gold foil covered chocolates on the turned down beds. They don't stay in those kind of rooms, have never been able to afford them. But they supposed the management more than made up for the expense with the complete lack of spending in every other area of upkeep. The Breath of Fresh Inn was anything but, didn't even have a theme that they could make out, as though every stick of furniture and art had been snagged from garage sales and Good Will.

But they had the little chocolates. Go figure.

"A whole bucket, huh?" Sam teases, scrubbing a hand over the gritty mess at the back of his neck. God, he's gross. A shower is definitely in order. "Sleeping with housekeeping again, Dean?"

Dean doesn't laugh or look up from the gun in his hands--Sam's Glock. Yeah, overkill. "Something like that," Dean answers. His eyebrows lift to meet Sam's gaze, but his eyes stay fixed on the cleaning.

"Huh." Sam's not sure how to take that. Dean looks like shit and doesn't smell much better. Something like sleeping with housekeeping can't be much like actually sleeping with housekeeping. Not in Dean's condition. He leans forward, preparing to get up and make his way toward the shower, and his angle changes just enough to notice a glint on the table amongst the weapons that just doesn't belong.

"You weren't kidding," Sam scoffs, incredulous at the mound of wrapped chocolates on the table beside the can of gun oil.

Dean shrugs. "Was hungry."

"So why didn't you order out? It's a small town, but there's the Chinese place across the street, and there was still cash in my wallet."

"No."

"No, what, Dean? No money? You still had your credit card, right?" Silence. "Dean?" The long-clawed fingers are back to pulling on Sam's spinal cord as he watches, transfixed by the movement of Dean's hands over the weapons.

"Nothing bad's gonna happen to you, Sammy."

Something's wrong. Something besides the obvious fresh scars and stiff muscles, stilted movements of shoulders and torso. There's too much squint in Dean's eyes, too much sweat on his brow, an intensity indicative of deep concentration.

Dean's never taken the care of their arsenal lightly, but the days when he needed every ounce of concentration to perform the maintenance are decades past. Dean can dismantle and reassemble his .45 in pitch black and tell you which chamber the bullet's in. Dean might get his boxers on inside out when he sneaks out of a chick's apartment in the middle of the night, but his knife will be perfectly positioned in its sheath when he takes off his pants and climbs into his own bed back at the motel.

Squinting, Sam makes out the pale tracings of cuts on Dean's fingers and hands, longer slashes up his forearms, all marks of carelessness and inexperience.

"Dean?" The tremble in his voice scares Sam, but Dean doesn't answer, doesn't stop the mumbled soliloquoy rolling from barely moving lips. And Sam's afraid, very afraid.

TBC

Hugs to all you wonderful loyal reader types. Again, this hasn't been edited. Feel free to point out errors. It's not done to be disrespectful, just in the interest of getting the story down and out. If it's already posted, I can't keep going back and nitpicking instead of writing more. I hope it's not too offensive.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

_"No deal," Mary says, her face set in an expression he can't read. Humans are still rather a mystery to him, anyway. A couple millenia amongst them, and still they learn new deceptions, slip through his fingers in ways that surprise even him. _

_But their hearts are the same. That is their weakness. _

_Or their strength. Probably a little of both, he thinks. All the more reason to cover all his bases._

_"I don't believe you."_

_"Why not?" She asks. "You're the demon. Of the two of us, I'm the most apt to be truthful."_

_"And you're a witch," he laughs, "in way over your head and dealing in forces you have no business in."_

_"But I do have business here." She turns to face him, and this time there's no mistaking the set of her brow, the open expression in her eyes. "I was born a witch the same way as you were born a demon. I have my destiny, and you have yours."_

_"And Dean has his," Azazel replies. He doesn't miss her flinch at the name of her firstborn. It pleases him enough to make him smile, a genuine smile, unlike the sneer he soften sports. "Tell me, witch. Are you prepared to watch him meet it? There's no shame in admitting otherwise, you know. You wouldn't be the first of your kind to crack under the pressure. It's not easy to watch someone you love slip away, one grain of humanity at a time."_

_"It's his destiny," she says, but her eyes shift to the ground. Azazel doesn't miss the quickening pace of the pulse in her throat._

_"A few months ago you were not so accepting. Then, you were willing to trade. Your hero for mine. What's changed? And might I add, I don't take kindly to whelchers."_

_Mary smiles, a faraway look in her eyes, and he trembles. It's the expression of one who's seen past her own needs, one who's looked for answers and found them somewhere in that confounded human heart. Even a demon knows the only truth is there. It's what makes man chosen over demons. _

_Fortunately, most humans do not trust themselves and seldom find what they seek. It's what makes the sowing and the reaping of evil such a fulfilling trade._

_Mary's hand brushes over her stomach reverently. "He has a name," she says._

_"The unborn?" He asks, incredulous. "It doesn't even have a soul, yet."_

_"Dean wants a brother," she says. "Last night when I tucked him into bed, he asked me if he could have a little brother for his birthday." She laughs when she says it, the innocence of youth so endearing and yet ironically bliss when there ar so many like Azazel waiting to steal it. "He said if he had a brother, he would name him Sammy."_

_Azazel is unimpressed. "You would let him die to give him a childish wish? How is that the mature, parental thing to do?" He taunts. "I'm disappointed. You seemed more intelligent than most. I guess I was wrong."_

_"His destiny was chosen by powers greater than I, and if I cannot change it, then he will do a lot of good in his short life and find peace at the end of it. If I cannot change it, then he deserves to be happy. He deserves a brother. I can give him that, and I won't take it away."_

_"There's a but," he says. "I can see it on your lips."_

_Mary looks away. "I won't let him die. I'll save my son, but you're not the answer I seek. It was a mistake to call you. I won't trade one son for another."_

_"You're making a mistake. Your son would be king. He'd..."_

_"...rule a world of suffering and torment, destroy everything Dean and so many others were born to change. I won't do that. I'll find another way."_

_"There is no other way," he lies. She's not very good at deception, presses her lips togeher tightly but can't keep them from curving up just enough for him to notice. He grasps her shoulder, turns her around, white nightgown swirling around her. "You've found the amulet."_

_"No," she spits. "But, I will. If it's the last thing I do."_

_"It will be," Azazel promises._

_"Get out."_

_He concedes. "Very well, but just so you know, I always get what I want." _

"_Except a place in Heaven," she says, eyes narrowing. _

_He yanks her close, snarls against her ear. "I don't need your permission."_

_He laughs as she pales against him, then disappears._

_oOo_

_Mary bolts up in the bed, nearly jerking the covers to the floor as she reaches for the glass of water on the night stand. John's at her side in an instant, wraps her tight in his arms._

_She leans into him, nuzzles against his lips as he kisses her temple. "What's the matter?" He asks. "Is it the baby? Is he okay?"_

_She lets out a shuddering sigh, smiles as she covers his hand with her own, the two clasped over her swollen belly. _

_"Yes," she whispers. "Sammy's fine. It was just a dream, baby. Go back to sleep."_

oOo

Sam shifts stiffly on the bed, not sure his legs will hold him just yet as he braces his feet against the cold floor.

"What're you doing, Dean?" He can't keep the suspicious tone out of his voice and hates himself a little at the way Dean's eyes dart up from the gun he's cleaning.

"What I always do, Sam. Watching out for my little brother."

Sam swallows. "What exactly are you watching out _for_?" He makes a move to stand, pulling himself up on the edge of the endtable.

Barely a second on his feet, he feels himself jerked from behind as Dean grabs his shoulder and tosses him down on the opposite bed. He hits with a jarring thud that makes the spring squeak and the headboard bang against the wall. When he gets his bearings again, Dean's between him and the door, gun in hand and looking over his shoulder toward the window in quick, jerky glances.

"Stay down!"

"Down? What're you talking about?"

Dean stalks over to the far wall and slides along it to the edge of the window. He takes a second to peek out through the closed blind then ducks away hastily. Sam doesn't like the sheen of his skin, the shift in his red eyes.

"They've got us surrounded," Dean huffs. He darts a glance at Sam, softens his expression, almost on purpose, or so it looks to Sam who's spent a lifetime learning to read the subtleties of Dean. "Don't worry, though, Sam. I've got a solid perimeter. They can't get in."

Surrounded? Perimeter? Sam wonders if he's not still asleep and delirious with fever. There's no other explanation he knows for waking up in this foxhole.

Panicking, Sam flips around on the bed, jerks his head from side to side as he looks again at the salt lines, this time catching the Devil's Trap on the back of the door and a string of protective charms strung in front of the window. Dean's not playing around.

Heeding the warning, Sam slides off the bed onto his knees and reaches behind himself for the nearest knife on the table.

"Who, Dean? Who's got us pinned down."

"Demons. Whole mess of 'em, Sam. They showed up when you were sick. I couldn't get us out in time, but we'll think of something. You go back to bed. I got it under control."

If Dean weren't all the way across the room, Sam thinks he might smack him about now. There's something wild in his eyes, horse in a burning barn wild, and there's no way of reasoning with that.

"Dude, delusions of grandeur much?" Sam huffs. "If there are demons out there, then we need to call in the cavalry. Bobby, Ellen, Joshua...God, anyone on the outside. We can't just hole up in here indefinitely."

Dean checks his gun, backs away, scoots around the bed, and stops in front of the closet, checking the salt line. "Don't need 'em." He says.

"Like hell we don't!" Sam tosses dirty bandages and motel stationery off the endtable. He's sure he left his phone somewhere around there. If he can get hold of Bobby... There it is..."Shit."

He picks up a fistful of plastic bits and componentry that vaguel resemble his phone. Only it's not just a phone. It's their life, not in the way that they are each other's lifeline or the Impala is their home, but it's the one thing that keeps them from being alone in this. It's their only connection to the handful of allies they have in this war, and it's scattered in brightly colored chunks across the table.

"Dammit!" He hisses, tension throbbing behind his eyes, and clears the table with a sweep of his hand, sending plastic scattering to the corners of the room like shrapnel from a toy bomb. "I don't _believe_ this."

"Had to do it, Sam." There's something apologetic, almost fearful in Dean's voice, not at all the tone of someone who has things well in hand. "They were trying to get in my head. Kept calling and calling. I already told 'em my terms. If they want to deal, the ball's in their court."

Sam's cold, and he doesn't think it has anything to do with the sweat slowly drying into a crust over his entire body. Dean hasn't looked at him once, hasn't established anymore contact than he would with a random innocent on a case. Dean's a lot of things. Stubborn, sometimes a bit of letch, and the best goddamned brother Sam could ever hope for, but he's also a terrible liar.

Sam's missing something.

"If they want to deal? Deal for what?" Sam asks. He's already sure he doesn't want to know.

Before Dean can answer, there's a crash from inside the closed bathroom, a thud like something tossed into the tub, thrashing to get out.

With a growl, Dean thumps his fist against the wall. "Shut up, bitch! You'll get out of there just as soon as your pals back off and give us a break."

"Dean?" Sam's already moving toward the door, adrenaline overriding the last stiffness in his muscles.

"Sam, don't go in there." Dean growls.

Sam doesn't listen, puts his hand on the knob and flings it open. He takes one look inside and collapses back against the door frame, running a hand over his face, mouth agape.

"Oh God."

TBC

A/N: Soooo, from the fact that there are now forty alerts on this story and people keep adding it like crazy, I'm guessing people are just waiting to comment until they figure out where I'm going. Bwahahahaha! Good luck with that, because I'm not even sure I know where I'm going. The whole thing was outlined, but the boys went off the script somewhere around the second scene. Gotta love story. It must be told however it must be told.

And one of you lovely peoples got that Dean was paranoid in the last chapter. Cookies for you. It means I did something right. There's also a very big hint about his behavior in this chapter. Cookies to anyone who gets that. I got work the next couple days. Might be a bit for the next chapter. Thanks for hanging out patiently.


	6. Chapter 6

See first chapter for header and disclaimer. Thx.

For this chapter, there are a few spanish words. I do not speak Spanish, save a couple years in high school. I can follow it in a conversation but so cannot speak it. No intention to offend whatsoever.

**Chapter Six**

Dean watches Sam slip around the door frame like a snake down a staircase. He half-lunges forward but stops when a spear of light stabs him in the eye. Didn't get the drapes closed all the way. It's just a little chink in their fortress, but all Achilles had was one. He presses back against the wall with a too-hard thump, air whooshing from his lungs as the bathroom snicks shut.

Holding Sam back when he's got his mind set has never been one of Dean's fortes, anyway.

Sam's in there with...it. Dean's hand tightens around the worn hilt of the knife in his waistband, silver over consecrated iron, smelted over black flame. Wouldn't kill a demon, but it'd hurt like hell. Taking care to duck the chink in the drapes, the motes of dust large enough to glow, explosions of color on the fringes of his peripheral vision, he starts toward the door only to fall back against the wall panting.

He tries shaking his head, but only ends up on his knees. It's taking longer to catch his breath than it should, and for the first time in two days, he can't even feel his cracked ribs. Numb isn't necessarily a good thing, he thinks, too aware of a sticky trickle over his lip and down the back of his throat, tang of copper on his tongue.

He's torn between breathing and coughing, ends up choking.

The world shifts into a nightmare all black and white like memory with the negative reversed. The heat kicks in and blows the curtain aside a little farther. The sliver of light becomes a quasar, microwaves popping and sizzling through the synapses in his brain. His head falls against the wall with a thud, and in its wake, there's an echo strangely reminiscent of the Bionic Woman's super power sound effects. It'd be cool if it didn't hurt so goddamned much.

Blinded, Dean falls back against the closet door. He presses his thumbs into his eyesockets, but that only blocks out the light. The burn's already on a bullet train down through his nervous system, sparks showering out behind it. If this is an acid trip, he needs to come down...yesterday.

"Sammy," he pants, sliding down the wall. He can barely even hear himself. No way Sam notices through the door and the wall, but Dean can't do more than breathe through the pain, gasping, and hee-hee-heeing. He's not too manly to try lamaze breathing if it will help.

It doesn't.

Instead, something snaps. Maybe the bullet train jumps its track. Maybe Dean does. Clenching his jaw, Dean's head snaps back on his neck and cracks into the wall, not just blinding white on the overhead projector screen but stars in the darkness behind it.

Dean hisses through his teeth, and the sound's like water splashing into a fountain. Dean hates fountains. Has ever since that time when Sam was three and almost drowned in one trying to get pennies to buy gumballs. Sam's never asked for gumballs since then, and Dean can't remember being all that fond of them himself, but damn if he can't taste them now, warm on the roof of his mouth and thick down his throat. Doesn't taste anything like blood.

But it is.

He swallows convulsively around a tightening choke he can barely breathe past. His heart feels like one of those toys full of colored balls that pop around erratically when it's pushed across the floor.

"Sammyyy..." Sam's in the next room. Dean remembers the door opening, Sam sliding through, but he's not supposed to be there. He's not supposed to because...

Inhale. Exhale. Swallow. Inhale. Because. Exhale. Swallow.

Well, he's just not.

"Sammmyyy." Dean strains an arm up, tries to open the door, but the first stream of light through the crack pushes him back like a vampire dodging beams of sunlight. What hits him in the face makes a thunderclap in the back of his mind and sizzles in his ears.

Looking down doesn't help. Salt crystals crunch under his knees like gravel, loud enough to feel in his teeth. His hand's still on the door, but he can't feel it, just the army of ants in golf shoes that burrow under his skin.

"Sammmyyy..."

He wants to say it hurts. He'll admit it, just this once if someone would just make it stop. But he can't form the words, tongue thick and useless behind teeth coated with super glue. He opens and closes his mouth, panic rising in his chest, but he can't speak.

He reaches for he door handle one last time, and a bulb pops its filament behind his eyes. For a second, everything's brighter, God taking a photograph, and there's just dark.

oOo

At least it's not blood. Sam's not sure what it is smeared over every wall and surface of the room, pretty sure, but it's not blood. Some of the symbols he knows, and some he recognizes without knowing off the top of his head.

Sam hadn't even known Dean could make one from memory, let alone so many, but there's not a book open in the room, not enough light to read if there was. Dean always has had a better head for patterns and numbers than words. He always knows exactly what he's doing as long as no one asks him to explain, because the words might fail him. Sam figures that comes from a long life of instructions that started with, "Dean, shut up and listen."

'Like your life depends on it,' was never spoken, but implied and understood. Their lives have always depended on action, not words. They don't waste words justifying what they do. At least, Dean doesn't, and Sam usually doesn't ask him to.

But this? Sam needs an explanation for this.

Mirna, the nice Honduran cleaning woman they'd met on their first morning here, glares up at him, bound, gagged, and sopping wet inside the bathtub.

At least now he knows where Dean got all the chocolates.

Sam wasn't far from collapsing to begin with, but the sight of that sweet lady reduced to a quivering mess is enough to sap the last bit of resolve he's got. He drops to his knees beside the bathtub, his skin loose on his bones, sliding over his muscles like he's sloshing through space, a slight time delay on his sense perception. It's nauseating, but he's not fed or hydrated enough to puke.

Mirna cringes away from him as he reaches toward her. It's impossible to see the tears for all the wet, but her face is tight around the gag in a way that he knows she's crying hysterically. She shudders with cold and fear, eyes accusing as she chokes.

God, Sam was in the room when this happened. Out of his mind, but in the same room, and he didn't know.

"It's okay," he lies, voice soft. It's not okay. He hesitates only a moment, hand hovering over the gag before he pulls it back. Sam trusts his brother over anyone else in the world, would stake his life on Dean's word, but this woman's no demon. Doesn't matter how many sigils paint the walls and how much holy water's been poured over it, a demon's not going to just sit cowering in a bathtub, bound with old rags.

The gag slips from her mouth, and Sam's stomach lurches as the deep red marks in the corners of her lips become visible. Her knees and elbows are bruised purple from thrashing against the hard sides, and Sam wishes he had a blanket to put over her. Instead, he tries to support her, his palm on her cheek, thumb rubbing circles over the constriction marks in an attempt to get circulation moving again. His other hand fumbles with the knot at her ankles.

"It's okay," he soothes. "I've got you."

She spits on him, and he doesn't jerk away. He just blinks, opens his eye enough to glimpse the mucus in his eyelashes before wiping it away. He can't be angry with her, doesn't have the presence of mind to figure out what he feels, so he lets her feel for the both of them as her tears flow hot over his fingers. Numb on the outside and twisted inside like broken glass in the belly of a python, he goes back to the knot while she hisses and sobs an endless stream of Spanish profanity mixed with what sounds suspiciously like prayer.

Sounds like she's speaking tongues. Only his two semesters of High School Spanish say otherwise.

Sam swallows his apologies, nothing he can say to make it better. His nerves frayed and stretched, Sam jumps when the bathroom door squeaks.

"Sammyyy." It doesn't even sound like Dean, raspy, with a low rumble that makes Sam's blood curdle. It reminds him of The Shining, one of Dean's favorite Jack Nicholson flicks. If only this was just another one of Dean's movie trivia moments. He really hopes Dean's not sharpening up an axe on the other side of the door, but he can't for the life of him figure why Dean hasn't busted it down already. It's not even locked. He'd expected some kind of fight, still half-expects Dean to come in and drag him out by the hair. The suspense isn't helping Sam get a grip. Not in the least.

Sam hisses, burning his fingers as they tangle in the rope, and he's probably tightening rather than loosening. It's just the kind of week he's having, but he hurries anyway, expecting Dean to intervene at any second.

He doesn't, and that worries Sam more.

"Sammyyy." The words grate over a some old scab in his memory. "Sammyyy."

"El Diablo," Mirna hisses, her whole face trembling. "El Diablo." Her eyes are frantic, darting around the room, each roll of her gaze tightening a coil inside her that Sam can feel beneath his fingers.

"No, no es El Diablo," he insists, trying to draw her attention to his face. He hopes the expression on his face is closer to sincere, or at the very least, endearing, but he's got a feeling it's twitching toward big bad wolf, what with his breath coming in pants and his bangs puffing up and down in the current. "Mi hermano," Sam huffs. "Esta enfermo."

"Di-A-BLO," she insists, lunging toward him. He falls back just in time to avoid being headbutted. "Ojos del Diablo."

Devil eyes. She would think that. Somehow he doesn't think telling her that Dean's eyes are red with blood and not evil will win him any confidence points.

"Enfermo," he says quietly, going back to the binding. "Muy, muy enfermo."

He prays he's not lying. Dean's sick. He has to be sick. Sam has to get him to a doctor, but at the moment, keeping them both out of jail takes precedence.

"Sammyyy..." Dean groans.

Sam's eyelashes are heavier than his fingers. "I'm right here, Dean," he half-sobs. Dean knows he's here. Why isn't Dean here? "I'm just helping out housekeeping. I told you about leaving your underwear soaking in the sink." He doesn't know who he's kidding, but he can't take the lost sound in Dean's voice.

"Sammyyy, come out..."

"Dean, I'm right here...Ah,screw it." Sam fixes an apologetic gaze on Mirna and stands, leaning heavily on the sink. He can't concentrate on ropes when Dean's tying him in knots with his voice.

He pulls the door, half-expecting Dean to plow him down the second he does. When it scrapes over grains of scattered salt and opens into the main room, his breath is sucked from his lungs just as effectively as if Dean _had_ tackled him.

Fever aches, wobbling legs, and all, Sam would much prefer a linebacker full body block to finding Dean collapsed on the carpet, blood seeping from his nose and eyes.

"Dean!" He doesn't even register the salt digging into his knees when he drops beside his unconscious brother. He threads a hand behind Dean's head, swallowing a retch as it just lolls into his grasp without a jerk or protest. A cold film of sweat rubs seeps into the cuts in Sam's fingers, burn in the places his nails were pulled loose digging Dean out of that hole. He can just hear a rasping gurgle of breath over his own heartbeat, can feel a spark of a pulse beneath his fingertips.

"Oh, God..." He falls forward, almost on top of Dean as Mirna runs out of the bathroom, the still-knotted rope dangling around one leg. Sam must've gotten it loose enough for her to kick free. Before Sam can regain his balance and sit upright, she's across the room, hand on the doorknob.

The door's no sooner open than she disappears, too suddenly, snatched from the entry. Her scream is stifled then lost in a flurry of footsteps that grows steadily louder.

"S.W.A.T. Team! Drop your weapons!"

It seems Dean's paranoia wasn't entirely delusional, after all.

Sam doesn't even remember taking the knife from Dean's hand, but he regrets it when red dots appear across his chest. His fingers refuse to release it, not fast enough, and before he can even register just how screwed they are, the S.W.A.T. team opens fire.

TBC

**A/N:** BWahahaha! That has got to be the most evil cliffie I have ever left. And to top it off, I have bad news. It seems I've over-extended myself with holiday fics, this story, and work. I'm pitching pebbles into buckets like crazy, but like Forrest Gump says, "Sometimes, there just aren't enough rocks." I'm aiming for updating this story once a week, but I can't make promises as the Holiday deadlines draw near.

I also think I'm going to write a few oneshots based on the story I posted the other day. For those of you who haven't read it, it's called "Sole Survivors." Please do be going and reading. I think it's the best thing I've written, like ever. I lurves it so.

Oh, and don't forget to review. Smishes to all.


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